Emerging Photographer: Jenny Hueston

I first came across Jenny Hueston’s work a few years ago, not long after we both moved to New York. Hueston, a Canadian who came to the city after a decade in London, carried a 35-mm. camera with her wherever she went. She documented everything that caught her eye, including many of the people she met. At the time, we both lived in Brooklyn, and when I watched her shoot around our neighborhood, or on occasional trips we took upstate, she seemed to have an innate ability to make people feel comfortable. Over time, her camera became an innocuous extension of herself. She began to work on photo projects in places as diverse as Nicaragua and the Arctic Circle. “I like the drastic contrast between isolated cultures and the frenzy of New York,” she told me. “The communities I’ve visited in Northern Canada have a stillness and truth to them that I’m drawn to.”

Hueston’s portraits—of musicians, beauty-pageant contestants, fishermen, elderly strangers, and friends—suggest a confidence and directness on the part of the subjects that contrasts with her own self-confessed reserve. “Being introverted led me to sit back and watch moments unfold. There’s a security in holding a camera that allows you to disappear and explore at the same time,” she said. And yet, she noted, “There’s always an element of fear in needing to capture someone’s personality on film. It’s the balance of those feelings that excites and compels me.”